I feel really bad for you if you honestly believe that playing games should take a large amount of your time. It simply should not. You should be doing much better things with your time. Between my social life, work and school, I am very lucky to get 2-3 hours a day in, and in that time I want to feel like I am actually accomplishing something. I would not want it any other way. I love my life, and I would never choose to just play video games all damn day.

"The round, metal cooking utensil referring to the larger, cookware customarily used for, but not limited to, stews, as being of a dark shade or possibly of African descent." ~~ Fixed for now. But keep in mind any one of the words used in that fix may become politically incorrect or offensive at any moment for any reason. Further amendments may be required to prevent frivolous lawsuits in the future.

The problem with MMORPGs is that they focus too much on the grind/content. Does starcraft need gear and level grinds for people to play it? Call of duty ? Counterstrike ? .

Those are grinds, but of a different nature. The grind is the repetitive action, such as dailies. How could you say moving up the ladder in SC2 by repeating battle after battle (albeit different maps) is not a grind?

Originally Posted by DonQShot

Well I can only say that WOW should not fall for the trap that is the f2p model as Mark Kern is insinuating. If it does become f2p then the game is dead because there will not be any more money to finance patches and constant updates.

You'd be surprised. F2P is not death and can frequently mean more money. On a sub-based game, they have a specific amount of money, based on subscribers, arriving on a 30 day basis (assuming everyone pays $15 a month and not using 6 month or year plans). That means, in order to be profitable, they need to produce enough content with costs low enough that the $15 per month from everyone is outpacing the costs of said development.

It doesn't always work that way. With WoW, with the lower production costs due to the lesser graphics engine and time-tested infrastructure, it's pretty easy. With games like SWTOR and the considerably more detailed graphics engine, new style of play (including voiceovers and cut-scenes for every quest), the $15 a month just doesn't cover the costs, per month, of developing the content consumed within that 30 day period. So, enter in F2P. Market a bunch of necessary items cheaply, and people equate $5 or $10 items with a savings against a $15 sub. They think "it's free! I only buy what I need", but what they end up doing is spending $50 in a month on various things and suddenly they're paying 3x what they did before...and Bioware reaps the profit.

I feel really bad for you if you honestly believe that playing games should take a large amount of your time. It simply should not. You should be doing much better things with your time. Between my social life, work and school, I am very lucky to get 2-3 hours a day in, and in that time I want to feel like I am actually accomplishing something. I would not want it any other way. I love my life, and I would never choose to just play video games all damn day.

LOL I have to agree with u on this one! But the point still stands, LFD and LFR came to allow any noob to play end-game and ultimately ruined the sense of epicness to wow and ruined a good part of social interaction within it. Nowadays any noob has an epic and a lvl 90 toon with good armor without tasting half of the wow universe or even without leaving the capital. If you only feel like u achieved something with LFR and without having to work for it, then I fear that life will also bore u down because even in real life, things aren't handed to u in a silver platter and if u want something good, u have to work for it.
So, just my opinion and as a comparison, nowadays with LFD n LFR ofc its not an achievement if u have green items or low lvl armor because all u got to do is log on, and in ur 2 hours of free time u get ur toon geared sitting on ur thumb, but back in the days, mostly vanilla, having a blue item or a full set of proper lvl armor was a real achievement. So my advice to u, use the word achievement more carefully.

I feel really bad for you if you honestly believe that playing games should take a large amount of your time. It simply should not. You should be doing much better things with your time. Between my social life, work and school, I am very lucky to get 2-3 hours a day in, and in that time I want to feel like I am actually accomplishing something. I would not want it any other way. I love my life, and I would never choose to just play video games all damn day.

That's the point of MoP now - that you accomplish something in a few hours play. But imagine the production costs in games that aren't WoW in order to provide new content that can take that long to truly consume...

Those are grinds, but of a different nature. The grind is the repetitive action, such as dailies. How could you say moving up the ladder in SC2 by repeating battle after battle (albeit different maps) is not a grind?

Yes by that definition of grind, everything you do often is a grind. But how many people are playing these games to actively try to reach the top of the ladder instead of just having fun? Compared to how many people actively work for max level/gear in MMOs, I'm pretty sure that number is quite small. And people that do reach the top, don't lose interest in playing because of that. It's because the focus in these games is not reaching the top, there's no actual reward built in the game for when you reach the top. Sure you'll probably get some tournament invitations and sponsor contracts offered, but you get those because you are good, not because the developers made their game in such a way you'd get those by playing often.

By the way, my definition of grind is "Something repetetive that you'd rather not do, but do anyway just because of the reward". I find it a bit more fitting given the negativity the word. Because while something is fun, it doesn't matter if it's repetetive, so it doesn't deserve the negativity coming with the word "grind".

There's no hope for MMO's because no one is going out on a limb and risking their game... there's no leaping... everyone is just sitting still and playing safe moves... Pet battles, it serves no purpose towards the actual game. It was a safe move because whether people liked it or not, it wouldn't directly affect them if they chose not to do it. So instead of stupid features like that... maybe blizzard could of actually put in some work and made something new. Why is it that all the quests are the same? Ever since level 1 you're told to collect this or find that or kill blah blah blah... it's rubbish. Why is this model still excepted??? Are there other ways to make quests more engaging? I'm sure there is, but it requires risks... which blizzard is too scared to do. Blizzard sees WoW as an unstable game... With MoP, they truly didn't know what to expect... but they're now barely hanging on... If they don't reinvent the entire genre for WoW... then it's doomed. But I assume that their god tier developers are using these amazing ideas for Titan and don't want to implement any of those new features to WoW in fear that Titan wouldn't feel new.

I agree that the grind needs to go. And the only way the grind is going to go is if levels go. Get rid of them and instead replace them with a more flexible chapter system and have progression be based on learning new spells and getting gear (but getting meaningful gear, not replacing it every other day.). This would create a sense of there being a lot more content, because it would be available all the time to everyone and would create a better sense of community seeing as the playerbase wouldn't be so segregated by level.

PvE content should be split more distinctly into multiplayer and singleplayer experiences. The multiplayer experience could involve multiple different "frontiers." These would be multi-staged storylines which all players on the server would contribute to in order to unlock the next stage (think Isle of Quel'danis but much bigger and more epic.). Once the next stage had been unlocked an event would be triggered and the game world would change for everyone (though with old stages available to be played in phased versions.). So imagine one week visiting a bustling town and the next finding it burnt to the ground. New stages could be added in patches every now and then, creating a continual stream of updates rather than messy cataclysm esque revamps.

Single player content would mostly be instanced, with a personal story a la guild wars 2. Player housing would play a part here, acting as a developing hub for the single player content. It'd all be about branching storylines and character interactions here. Single player dungeons are a possibility.

For PvP I'm thinking mostly open world Guild vs Guild combat, with various castles and points that guilds could utilise as bases and fight each other over.

And also, no monthly fee. Instead a sort of expanded blizzard store (but no in game advantages.) and cash transfers for major content patches.

Yes by that definition of grind, everything you do often is a grind. But how many people are playing these games to actively try to reach the top of the ladder instead of just having fun? Compared to how many people actively work for max level/gear in MMOs, I'm pretty sure that number is quite small. And people that do reach the top, don't lose interest in playing because of that. It's because the focus in these games is not reaching the top, there's no actual reward built in the game for when you reach the top. Sure you'll probably get some tournament invitations and sponsor contracts offered, but you get those because you are good, not because the developers made their game in such a way you'd get those by playing often.

By the way, my definition of grind is "Something repetetive that you'd rather not do, but do anyway just because of the reward". I find it a bit more fitting given the negativity the word. Because while something is fun, it doesn't matter if it's repetetive, so it doesn't deserve the negativity coming with the word "grind".

Well you'd be surprised about how many people just play WoW for fun with little interest in the "grind". You hear the very vocal, very small minority complaining, not the whole userbase.

[I]"... The cost and time required to develop more content for players to enjoy made it difficult to impossible to keep them supplied with entertainment for their $15 a month."

This was a self-inflicted wound from Bioware when they thought it was a good idea to use VO for everything. Many people pointed out that using VO for everything would make new content really expensive and time consuming. This should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Instead, Bioware pushed the "fully VO" angle hard and now they're stuck.

Is that a good thing? Haven't played either, although I have heard a lot about GW2 and I'm liking the sound of a lot of it's features. Would that it ran on mac.

While GW2's definitely not perfect, it's still a fun game. I don't know how macs work on the hardware side, but you might be able to dual boot it with a Windows installation and play through that; it's worth the $60. Alas, that's not the purpose of this thread.

I think the main thing we need is a constantly evolving and changing world.

The thing is, that's very difficult to do if you're trying to create a constant world. If it were a game with a definite start and end, that'd definitely be possible. The only game on the market that I can think of that really caters to the idea of constantly changing is EVE.

Originally Posted by Pancaspe

There will never be another large scale MMO not produced by Blizzard. It just does not make economic sense.

Even then, it doesn't make economic sense for Blizzard to make a large scale MMO.

Why is that? Blizzard isn't going to last forever and nor is WoW. I see no reason why a different company couldn't produce a successful new MMO. Doesn't mean it'll be a wow killer though.

There is a finite amount of market, and it is quite possible that WoW has enough of it "locked up" that short of WoW vanishing from the face of the Earth, there isn't enough market left for a new major MMO to survive. And if I was Blizzard, when WoW inevitably fades away, I would have a new MMO ready to recapture that market, probably after building hooks directly into WoW to encourage change over. Dethroning Blizzard and WoW isn't impossible, but most newcomers make various mistakes that let Blizzard remain top dog. This creates a situation where Blizzard may be able to hold on to the top position for a long, long time.

BTW, if SWTOR F2P flops it's not because the F2P model is dead. It's because of more self-inflicted wounds from Bioware like the crazy restrictions they put on non-sub accounts. It's always easier blaming the market or the playerbase rather than acknowledging the failures of the specific game.

Well you'd be surprised about how many people just play WoW for fun with little interest in the "grind". You hear the very vocal, very small minority complaining, not the whole userbase.

We're not just talking about WoW here. Most MMOs seem to be doing ok untill the majority has reached the endgame, then population drops off rapidly. And even if many people have no interest in it, there's no denying that WoW's main focus is on increasing the strenght of your character, either through leveling but mostly equipment. That's where they put the time sinks and gates in. They added a weekly limit on raid loot, added craftable items that require materials with a daily cooldown, added reputation requirements that can only be gained by doing dailies, and a weekly valor cap. Even heroics have some sort of system in place so you can't run the same one over and over again for that one particular piece you're missing. All this is aimed at reducing the speed at which people can gain equipment, because as soon as there's no more equipment upgrades, many people will leave.

Of course not everyone will leave. Some people have friends they don't want to leave behind. Others just make alts, or go for achievements. Blizzard has been adding a few things that people can do besides getting gear, like the pet battle system. But again, we're talking about MMOs in general. Just because the most successfull MMO of all time is doing ok with this system doesn't mean all the others are. Just think of how many "WoW killers" we have been promised so far. They all tried the same, they all failed.

Even other genres have started to include a leveling system in order to keep people playing as long as possible. There's just something about leveling that makes people want to play. Even in flash games, the ones that include a kind of leveling/upgrade system will often be the most popular. But as soon as people are done with the upgrades, they will lose interest. That's simply what you get when the game doesn't have you focus on your own self improvement.

Small note : This doesn't mean these games are inheritly bad, it just means that their "point of exit" is defined not so much by the player but by the developer.